Officers in BBC racism programme suspended

Monday, 20 October 2003 12:00 AM

Three officers from the Greater Manchester police force and a fourth from north Wales have been suspended over a television programme alleging racism at a training centre.

The action was taken after officials viewed footage due to be shown on a BBC programme entitled The Secret Policeman tomorrow night.

In the documentary it is alleged an officer dressed in a Ku Klux Klan mask at the Bruche Training Centre in Warrington, Cheshire.

An undercover reporter from the BBC, Mark Daly, also claims to have taped racist comments by some officers, including disparaging comments about the character of the murdered black student Stephen Lawrence and his family.

However, the programme has been criticised by the home secretary David Blunkett for the covert methods used to obtain the footage.

Mr Blunkett accused the BBC of preferring stunts to reporting real news and added, 'We work hard to tackle racism in the police. We take any allegation of racism very seriously and we are concerned about the reports of these incidents.'

Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, said media descriptions of the material suggested that it raised "very serious" concerns.

A spokeswoman for the BBC said: "While the programme makes clear that we found no evidence to suggest that anything but a small proportion of officers were racist, we feel it will give viewers cause for concern."

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